Syngman Rhee
1875 – 1965 South Korean independence activist, president
South Korea's first president, a US-backed anti-communist ousted by protest in 1960.
- Religion
- Methodist Christian
- Affiliations
- Liberal Party (South Korea); backed by the United States
Syngman Rhee was a US-educated independence figure who became the first president of South Korea in 1948 with strong American backing. His rule grew increasingly authoritarian and was marked by repression, election fraud, and wartime massacres. Mass student protests forced him from office in 1960, and he died in exile in Hawaii.
In the timeline
- 1948 Syngman Rhee's South Korea central figure